Southeast Asian Stock Market Linkages: Evidence from Pre- and Post-October 1997

This article investigates both the static and dynamic interdependence of the stock markets of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and the advanced stock markets of Australia, Germany, and the United States. Using data from 1990 to 2001, the paper employs both correlation and co-integration analysis to describe the behaviour of the above markets, both before and after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Examination of stock market returns, using correlation analysis, reveals an increase in the interdependencies (increased correlation) across the Southeast Asian stock markets in the aftermath of the crisis. Both multivariate and pairwise co-integration tests are carried out for all the above stock markets. Although there is evidence of integration between the Southeast Asian stock markets, overall the results suggest that there has been no significant increase in the integration between the Southeast Asian stock markets during the post-crisis period. With a few exceptions, there is little evidence to indicate the existence of any co-integrating vectors in either the multivariate or pairwise co-integration tests.